The Case of Oceola’s Missing Head
The Great Conflagration
On Monday, May 21st, 1866 fire broke out at the Academy of Music at the corner of 14th street and Irving Place in New York. The fire quickly spread to the adjacent Medical College and then consuming the entire block and much of the next block. The fire was described:
For miles around the glare of the configuration was visible. From the farthest part of Staten Island the catastrophe was plainly visible, and was view through telescopes by many spectators.
Contained with the Medical College, Valentine Mott’s museum was destroyed.
In the building was a very valuable anatomical museum, presented by Dr. Mott. It was valued at fifteen thousand dollars, upon which there is no insurance.
Two days later, Dr. Alex Mott sent a letter to the editor correcting the article saying:
Dr. Mott’s Anatomical Museum
to the Editor of the Herald
In justice to my father’s memory you will much oblige me by correcting the erroneous statement made in your issue of to-day that “Dr. Mott presented his valuable anatomical museum to the College several years ago.” By his will he left me the guarding of his museum, with power to remove it in case the Faculty of the University declined doing what was necessary for it preservation.
Arrangements had been made for its removal to the Bellevue Hospital Medical College, where a room had been prepared for its reception.
Alex B. Mott, M.D.
So was Osceola’s head destroyed in the fire? This has been presumed by many but never was explicitly stated. Dr. Valentine Mott had said the head was, “preserved in my library at home, for I fear almost to place it in my museum at the University… temptation will be so strong for someone to take it,” so it possible the head was not at the museum at the time of the fire. Valentine Mott had died the year before so it’s possible that the head remained at his house or in possession of his son, Alex, but if so, there is no mention of it either way by Alex.
Dr. Frederick Weedon’s great-granddaughter May McNeer Ward says that her grandfather William Weedon (son of Frederick Weedon) said the head was destroyed in the fire although there has never been any evidence that it was.